The Mexican drug trade offering a 5000 percent profit margin

They say you never forget your first time – and I’ll certainly never forget the first time I had 20 men armed with rifles and machine guns stand guard while I ate lunch, to protect us from an ambush.

It was at a nondescript seafood restaurant in Mexico, but my lunch companion was far more notable – the head of the Mexican Federal Police’s anti-drugs taskforce.

This is daily life for the man with just about the most dangerous job in the world – everywhere he goes, a convoy of armoured vehicles protects him, fearful of an assassination attempt from one of the notorious local cartels.

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But just like removing Saddam Hussein from Iraq, sometimes it’s better the devil you know – because as has happened in the Middle East, a power vacuum followed after toppling the all-powerful figure.

In its wake has come unprecedented bloodshed as different groups fight for control.

Last year was the most violent in Mexico’s history – the murder count for 2017 finished at the mind-boggling number of 29,168. That’s an average of one person killed every 20 minutes.

It’s a brutal business – the drug trade – and while you might think it’s a little to kind to refer to something so violent as a business, that is really what all of this boils down to – dollars and cents.

It’s a turf war – each cartel vying for a slice of the pie. And it’s a pie that is getting bigger at an alarming rate.

This is home to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the most brutal organised crime gang in Mexico that’s flourished since the capture of infamous drug lord El Chapo. (60 Minutes) (60 Minutes)In the past, when you heard of drugs from Mexico, your first thought would most likely be cocaine – but it is now seen as bad business for the cartels here. (60 Minutes) (60 Minutes)

In the past, when you heard of drugs from Mexico, your first thought would most likely be cocaine – but it is now seen as bad business for the cartels here. They have to buy the goods from Colombia, run the risk of getting it through numerous border crossings, pay off people along the way, and not make much profit at the end of it all.

As I said – they’re businessmen, and after crunching the numbers for years, there’s nothing that makes them more money than meth, or as we know it in Australia, “ice”.

Mexico is a meth-producing powerhouse, and Australia is a meth-consuming powerhouse – we have the second highest usage rates in the OECD.

And not only do Australians use more ice than just about anyone in the world, but we also pay more for it than anywhere else in the world.

So for the cartels, all of a sudden this is a match made in heaven – what they produce for about $4000 per kilogram they can then sell to Australian crime groups for $200,000 – you don’t need to be from Ernst & Young to figure out that a 5000 percent profit margin is good business.

That’s why the Australian Federal Police have now taken the ground-breaking step of putting their own personnel permanently on the ground in Mexico, working in conjunction with local authorities to try to cut off the meth shipments at the source.

The Australian Federal Police have now taken the ground-breaking step of putting their own personnel permanently on the ground in Mexico. (60 Minutes) (60 Minutes)Police are winning some battles, but there is still a very long way to go in this drug war. (60 Minutes) (60 Minutes)

It’s already yielding returns – they’ve managed to intercept several meth shipments from Mexico this year, and predict there are many more to come.

So they’re winning some battles, but there is still a very long way to go in this drug war.

And as the head of Mexico’s anti-drugs task force knows all too well, these cartels are more than ready to fight this war to the death.